First
by xotakux2002x
Summary: A series of drabbles about first milestones. Akatsuki pairings for now, might add more later if they're requested!
1. Bath

_A.N: I realize that Sasori probably shouldn't have to eat, or even be able to. That said, his still has an organic heart, so there has to be some way for him to replace the dead/decaying cells with new ones. So, until Kishimoto provides a good explanation for how that happens, I have Sasori eating._

* * *

Luxury was not something that Akatsuki members could indulge in very often. Their finances were managed by a cheapskate immortal who would barely give the other members enough money to scrape by without having his arm twisted to shell out a few bucks more. Most expenses _were_ taken care of, that was true; the base always had functioning utilities, the bedrooms were adequately furnished, and the fridge always had enough food in it to make sure that the ninjas living there wouldn't starve to death. But for other monetary matters, like travel funds, Kakuzu was very tight-fisted. For this reason, Akatsuki members were usually confined to staying in shady motels or caves when they were sent on missions, regardless of how much bitching and threatening went into trying to get a bigger travel budget.

Sasori and Deidara had been out on assignment, about to check into one of these less than pleasant roach motels, when the blond was knocked down by a carriage backing into him. Before Deidara could bitch out the driver for running into him and Sasori could bitch out Deidara for being so oblivious that he was run over in the first place, the passenger stumbled out of the carriage and began apologizing so profusely that even Sasori's frustration was somewhat dissipated. The passenger had been speaking with the carriage driver as they drove through town, distracting the man while he was attempting to park, resulting in Deidara getting hit. As compensation, he offered the artistic duo a free night at the best suite in his hotel (which was decidedly a few steps above the roach motel in terms of class and likelihood of having been cleaned at some point in the past decade). Needless to say, Deidara and Sasori were quite happy to take the man up on his offer.

Not even an hour later, the pair stepped through the door of the hotel's suite and looked around, admiring the luxury of their lodgings. The room contained two king-sized beds, a plush couch, fully-stocked mini-bar, desk, and a bottle of fine wine (compliments of the hotel owner). A peek through the bathroom door revealed a Jacuzzi-style tub set into the ground, flanked by elegantly shaped bottles of shampoo and bubble bath. An entire wall of the bathroom was frosted glass that looked into the main room. Fluffy towels sat upon the sink ledge, arranged to look like small animals. All in all, the room was a far cry from the sort of shady establishments that Sasori and Deidara normally frequented. "Damn, un," Deidara remarked with a grin, "I should get run over more often, un."

"Don't tempt me," Sasori replied as he set his bag down on one of the beds. "Incidentally, we should probably avoid telling Kakuzu about this."

"Huh? Why, un?"

Sasori sat down by the phone and picked up a copy of the hotel's menu that had been placed on the table nearby. "Because I intend to use that money he gave us to get us a decent meal."

"Seriously?! I'd love to eat something that isn't two weeks old and covered in green slime, un!"

"I thought so. Now, what do you want?"

Deidara quickly joined Sasori and began pointing out the things on the menu he wanted to order, which was just about everything. "Brat, you're going to make yourself sick trying to eat all this."

"I don't care, this is the only good food we're going to get for the whole mission, un!"

"No. Pick a few things."

"Please danna?" the blond begged, wrapping his arms around the redhead and giving him his most pathetic look.

"…If you puke this up, I'm going to kill you." Deidara merely smiled and gave Sasori a tight squeeze. "Stupid brat."

"Crotchety old man," Deidara shot back with a smirk.

As Sasori circled the items on the menu they were planning to order, Deidara dropped his cloak onto the bed. He walked towards the bathroom but halted just short of going through the doorway, biting his lip nervously. "Hey, Sasori danna?"

"Mm?"

"I'm going to take a bath now."

"All right, that should be fine since it'll probably take them a while for them to prepare all this food."

"Um, do you…"

"What?"

"Never mind, un," Deidara mumbled as he ducked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Shaking his head, the blond stripped out of his clothing and tossed them into the corner. "Geez Deidara, when did you turn into a blushing schoolgirl, un."

It was true that Deidara and Sasori had only been a couple for a few weeks now, so maybe the blond was justified in his hesitance to do certain things with his partner; like, say, inviting the redhead into the bathtub so they could bathe together. Normal couples did that, right? Well, maybe Kakuzu and Hidan weren't normal, and neither were Itachi and Kisame, but that was normal Akatsuki couple activity, and since he and Sasori were both Akatsuki members then it should be normal for them, right? That made sense, right?

"Stop over-thinking it, un," Deidara grumbled as he turned on the hot water and dumped an entire bottle of bubble bath into the tub. It didn't matter if doing such things was normal or not, since apparently Deidara didn't have the ability to even suggest co-bathing to Sasori at all. And even if he did somehow manage to voice his invitation to the older man, what would Sasori say? Would he want to just take an innocent bath together, or would things get friskier with all that naked skin and hands sliding over slippery flesh and bubbles obscuring some rather nice visuals that Deidara was eager to see-

"Deidara?" Sasori called out as he stepped into the bathroom.

"ACK!" Startled by the sudden appearance of his danna, Deidara accidentally tumbled into the bathtub headfirst, sending water splashing over the edge.

"…Brat, are you all right?" Sasori inquired when Deidara's head resurfaced.

"Sasori danna, didn't anyone ever teach you to knock, un?!" Deidara spluttered, handmouths gagging slightly from the lilac bubble bath in the water.

Sasori's unconcerned expression didn't change. "Why? I've seen you naked before," he calmly stated, referring to the times Deidara had had to strip down so that Sasori could tend to his injuries.

"That was different, un! We weren't…you know…dating," Deidara mumbled, the last word barely audible.

If Sasori noticed his partner's discomfort he chose to ignore it. Instead, he closed the door behind him and began stripping down. "The food's probably going to get here around the time you finish washing up and I'd be getting in, and I'd rather eat while it's hot," he explained as he tossed his shirt on top of Deidara's clothing.

Deidara felt his face heat up as he realized where Sasori was going with that line of thinking. "So you're saying…?"

"We'll bathe together, obviously," Sasori concluded as he began to remove his boxers, the final article of clothing on his body.

Nervous and embarrassed, Deidara averted his eyes and swam to the far edge of the tub, setting his hands above the water's edge. Never mind the fact that he'd been about to ask Sasori to do this moments earlier; he was about to bathe with his danna for the first time! And Sasori was acting like it was no big deal!

His panicked musings were disturbed by the slosh of water as Sasori sank into the tub, dunking his head beneath the mountain of suds before popping back up dangerously close to Deidara's face. "Mm, this is heavenly."

"Eep!"

Sasori quirked a brow at the blond's reaction. "Something wrong?"

"Er, soap in my eye?"

Sasori rolled his eyes and muttered something about stupid blonds before taking a seat beside Deidara. The bomber tried to keep his attention on just finishing his bath and getting out of here without blushing himself to death. Unfortunately, in his distracted state Deidara's handmouths had slipped beneath the water yet again, opened and slurped in a few globs of soapy water, causing them to sputter as Deidara made a face. Sasori gave Deidara another look, seriously concerned about his partner's behavior thus far. "Do you normally have this much trouble taking a bath?"

Deidara stretched his arms back so that they were safely out of the danger of the sudsy bath water. "Sometimes my handmouths swallow soap or water, un. It's gross."

"How do you wash your hair then?"

"Very carefully," Deidara answered as he reached behind him for the shampoo. Maybe he could get through this yet; he just needed to focus on the actual bathing part of his bath with Sasori, and not the naked danna aspect.

"Do you want me to do it?"

The shampoo bottle slipped out of Deidara's hand. "W-what?"

"Do you want me to wash your hair?"

"Um, sure, I guess," Deidara replied, realizing too late that he probably should have declined if he wanted to get his blushing and anxiety under control. Too late now.

Moments later Sasori had moved to sit on the edge of the tub and was lathering the shampoo in his hands, while Deidara scooted to sit between his legs and kept his eyes glued firmly forward, away from Sasori. Because there was a good chance that if Deidara got a decent look at what was resting between Sasori's legs, he was going to squeal like a girl or pass out. Possibly both. Being a teenager sucked.

Sasori, ever oblivious to his partner's discomfort, began to wash Deidara's hair with surprisingly gentle motions. "Too rough?"

"No, un," Deidara replied, melting into Sasori's gentle caresses. "Why is that, un?"

"If I rip out my puppets' hair it doesn't grow back, so I have to be careful," Sasori explained with a shrug. "Tilt your head…good, just like that."

Any additional comments that Deidara might have made died on his lips as Sasori began to rub little circles into the base of his skull. Instead, he shut his eyes and leaned into Sasori's hands, head eventually coming to rest on the redhead's thigh as he sighed contently. This was heaven.

Sasori smirked at the sight, tilting Deidara's head from side to side. "Who knew you could be so quiet and agreeable."

"Less talking, more head scratching, un," Deidara grumbled.

"Brat," Sasori chuckled but went back to washing the blond's locks. Once they were deemed clean enough, Sasori used a chakra thread to snag a cup off the bathroom counter. He turned on the tap and filled the cup, testing with his finger to make sure it wasn't too hot. "Tilt your head back," he instructed before dumping the water over Deidara's hair.

"Ack, too cold!"

Sasori rolled his eyes but adjusted the water temperature before repeating the procedure. Soon enough Deidara's hair was completely cleaned, much to the blond's satisfaction. "Thank you danna," he murmured, craning his neck back to smile at Sasori.

The Akasuna suddenly bent forward and pressed his lips to Deidara's, giving the blond an upside-down kiss. Caught off-guard, Deidara nevertheless kissed back and pushed up against Sasori, one hand slowly coming up to wrap around the puppet master's neck-

KNOCK KNOCK "Room service!"

Sasori made a displeased noise and sat up. "Coming!" he called out, quickly snagging a towel and wrapping it around his waist. Leaving Deidara to sit in the tub for a minute, confused and…disappointed?

Pouting softly, Deidara flipped the lever to drain the tub and climbed out, wrapping one towel around his hair and drying himself off with another. Curse that room service delivery man for interrupting their bath!

"Deidara, come on; the food's getting cold."

"Coming danna," the blond called out, gathering up their clothing and flipping off the light switch as he exited the bathroom. Still, for their first time bathing together, it had been pretty nice. "Maybe I can get danna to wash my hair again, un…"


	2. Crush

_A.N.: It's always bothered me that Kishimoto made it canon for Itachi to have a lover in Konoha; mostly because Itachi would have only been 13 or 14 at the time of this relationship. What 13-year-old has a "lover", not just a girlfriend/boyfriend? And given that he was usually working with ANBU and other jounin, there's a good chance this unnamed lover would've been quite a bit older than him, since we never meet anyone other than Shisui that was in Itachi's age group. That's kind of...weird. Just saying._

* * *

Itachi thought he knew what attraction was. In his mind, he'd felt attraction towards a select few people in his home village, even going so far as to pursue a relationship with one young man. Attraction was a soft, steady draw towards another person whom he could be unusually tolerant of. He'd never experienced the obsession, the butterflies in the stomach, the overwhelming euphoria that supposedly came with attraction and a relationship, but he chalked that up to being particularly stoic and in control of his emotions. An emotional crushing sensation that spawned a, well, crush, was something only experienced by weak-minded or overly-emotional fools that couldn't properly process and handle their emotions; in short, it was something that Itachi had become quite convinced would never happen to someone like them.

Then he joined Akatsuki and that notion walked out the door, took a boat to the next continent over, and was never seen or heard from again.

The person he'd developed this detestable crush on was none other than his partner, Kisame Hoshigaki. Even more frustrating, this crush had come out of nowhere; cliché as it may sound, Itachi had experienced a case of love at first sight (blegh). Itachi and Kisame had met, said their introductions (well, Kisame had introduced himself/threatened Itachi) and gone back to the base afterwards. The problem was, Itachi couldn't stop staring. He tried to write this off as merely being intrigued by Kisame's unique skin color and appearance (and oh, did he try hard at convincing himself of that), but after a few weeks of this denial he had to admit that he was much less focused on Kisame's blue skin and much more interested in the rippling muscles beneath that blue skin. Once upon a time he'd thought that guys built like a brick house weren't his type, but on Kisame that physique was just so…alluring.

Yet if this crush had only been based on physical attraction, Itachi probably could have suppressed it and ignored it indefinitely. Tragically, he grew to actually like his partner on a personal level as well. Having spent much of his ninja career among the rigid structure and decorum of the ANBU, Kisame's somewhat morbid humor on the battlefield was a pleasant change of pace that occasionally put a smile on Itachi's face (which was quickly hidden and fervently denied). The man was competent and skilled in battle (as could be expected of an S-ranked criminal) but readily let Itachi take the leadership role in their partnership. His brawn coupled with Itachi's brain made them an excellent team, and their personalities were a perfect complement to each other.

This still didn't change the fact that Itachi was a scrawny underage teenager and Kisame was a full-grown man whose sexuality was a total mystery to the Uchiha.

And so, for the six months following their initial meeting, Itachi set about silently denying, ignoring, loathing, and finally grudgingly accepting that he definitely had a thing for his partner. All the while, Kisame remained completely oblivious, which was probably why the shark had no problem getting close to his partner and clapping Itachi on the shoulder as they set out of the base one afternoon for their next assignment. "You sure you're all right?" he asked, giving the younger man a concerned look. "Your eyes-"

"They're fine," Itachi assured Kisame, brushing the shark's hand away. Itachi had just returned from a solo assignment that had involved extensive genjutsu usage, leaving the weasel extremely drained when he'd returned to the base the night before. He'd only been given half a day's rest before his next assignment with Kisame, when a normal ninja would have required at least two full days off to recuperate. Under normal circumstances, Kisame's concern would have been justified. However, nothing about Itachi Uchiha could be described as normal.

Kisame rolled his eyes but accepted his partner's answer. "I still say Sir Leader could've given this assignment to someone else…"

"Are you suggesting I'm incapable of completing our assignment?" Itachi asked.

"No! Just, don't you think he's pushing you a little hard?"

"Hn."

Kisame rolled his eyes again and turned away from Itachi, muttering, "Stubborn kid," under his breath as he walked away.

Itachi felt a twinge of annoyance at the comment, as he always did whenever someone chose to pay attention to his age over his extensive experience. He did his best to suppress this emotion (my, wasn't he good at that) and tried to write it off as Kisame being concerned for the success of their mission. Actually, that just annoyed him even more. He'd been an ANBU captain before joining the Akatsuki; concern for their success was perpetually at the forefront of his mind. Kisame should have realized that, even though their partnership was only a few months' old. And so, instead of letting it go like he probably should have done, Itachi strode up to his partner and grabbed Kisame's arm. "I'm fine, Kisame."

Kisame stared at him in silence for a moment. And then, faster than Itachi could see, he brought his hand up and grabbed Itachi by the jaw, tilting the Uchiha's head up to look directly at him. "Be honest with me," he demanded, bringing his face close to Itachi's. "Are you capable of carrying out our mission?"

Itachi's mind was going in a million directions at once. Concerned with the close proximity to his partner, he accessed what little he remembered of medical jutsu to keep the blood from rushing to his cheeks in a blush. At the same time, he had to push down a near-reflexive desire to free himself from Kisame's grip and counterattack. Along with this, he had to focus hard on keeping eye contact with Kisame, which was rather difficult seeing as he kept wanting to glance down at the lips that were now mere inches from his own. Oh, and then there was the small matter of formulating an answer to Kisame's question. "I'm fine, Kisame," he finally managed, pleased with himself for keeping his voice level. "We'll be fine."

Kisame smirked and let go of his partner. "Of course we'll be fine; I'm here. Just didn't want you slowing us down or anything."

Itachi chose not to comment; he was still processing the tingling sensation left over from Kisame touching his face. The grip had been firm, the fingers warm, the calloused skin sending pleasant shivers down his spine…

But now wasn't the time for that. He and Kisame had a mission to complete, and he had to prove to the elder man that he was worthy of being Kisame's partner. His crush (and all the delightful fantasies running through his head after the close contact with Kisame) would have to wait.


	3. Steps

It was with great pleasure that Sasori peeled off his winter coat and hung it on a peg near the front door. This winter had been an absolute nightmare thus far, and he'd been caught in a snowstorm between his subway stop and apartment. By the time he actually made it home, he was covered in flurries and had windburn on his cheeks. "I'm home," he called out as he kicked off his snow-covered boots.

"Welcome home!" Deidara called back. "We're in the kitchen, un."

Sasori walked down the hall and peeked his head into the kitchen, smiling at the sight. Deidara was currently cooking dinner over their stovetop, making something that smelled heavenly. Sitting at his feet was their adoptive son Tobi, who was wearing a colander over his head and chewing on a wooden spoon. The little brunette had just passed his first birthday and was quickly discovering the joys of picking up whatever he could get his hands on and shoving these items into his mouth. "Did you two have a good day?" Sasori asked.

"Yeah, un. Hey, do me a favor and keep an eye on Tobi until dinner's ready, ok? I've almost tripped over him twice, un."

Sasori felt a bit of panic creep into him at the request. "I can take over for you if you'd like," he offered.

His suggestion was met with a flat look from Deidara. "This coming from the man that married me for my cooking skills, un."

"Among other things…"

Deidara was not to be persuaded. "Just take Tobi into the living room and give him his building blocks, un. You'll be fine!"

"But-"

"I'll be right here in the next room, un."

"But-"

"You need to bond more with our son anyway, un. Now scoot!"

Thus Sasori found himself on the couch with Tobi at his feet, thoroughly confused as to what he should be doing. Deidara was the stay at home dad and handled most of the child-rearing stuff, chiefly because Sasori was absolutely terrible at it. Still, one-year-olds couldn't be that complicated. They were about on the level of a housecat with terrible motor skills, weren't they? "So, Tobi," he began. "you like these blocks, right?"

Tobi picked up one of the blocks in question and began to chew on it.

"Ok. Well, let's stack them," Sasori suggested, picking a few up and arranging them in piles a few blocks high. "There, that's good. I think."

Tobi continued to chew on his block.

"All right, now we'll…um…put a stuffed animal on top, I guess?"

Tobi gurgled and fell over on his side.

"Well, I think you've got this under control," Sasori decided, sitting back on the couch and turning on the TV. Maybe he could survive the next twenty minutes of alone time with his kid.

Only half-observing the news in the background, Sasori watched as Tobi poked at his blocks for a little longer, before crawling over to the coffee table and grabbing the edge to pull himself up. He'd been doing this for several weeks now, and though these attempts to stand invariably ended in the little boy falling on his butt, he never quit. Sasori smirked; any second now, those chubby legs would start to wobble, Tobi's face would scrunch up in a pout, and his son would fall to the ground and have to try again.

Except that he didn't. Instead, he took one tentative, wobbly step away from the coffee table. Sasori blinked and leaned forward in his seat, watching Tobi with rapt attention. The boy took another step, wobbling like jelly as he did so. "Come on Tobi," Sasori murmured, holding out his arms. "Come to daddy."

Tobi was able to take one more step before collapsing forward and being caught by Sasori. The redhead grinned and hugged the boy. "Good job, Tobi. Dei-dei's going to be so happy-"

"Oh, Sasori! Let me know if Tobi tries to walk, un! I think he's getting close and I don't want to miss his first steps, un."

Sasori paled slightly and gave his son a worried look. "Actually, let's keep this between the two of us, ok?"

Tobi let out a string of nonsensical sounds and smiled at him.


End file.
